The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1887-02-12

If we study our text in the light of
the context, we at once see that Paul
was teaching that Christian church is
a success, so far only as it works for
God and with God. To work for God
must be the Christian aim; and to
work with God is the Christian method.
The Christians aim in working for
God, will be characterized to great
extent by his theology, or philosophy OF
God. So also will his methods of work
be modified by his faith and conviction
concerning God.
We can know God only in a relative
and indirect way. What is man as
physical being, compared with the mass
of matter, composing unnumbered suns
and their revolving worlds He is so
near nothing, that we may as well write
down the human body as zero on the
one hand, and the universe as one with
an endless number of naughts to the
right of it 1t would take 1 200, 900
worlds as large as the earth to make
our sun; and our sun is only small
speck on the great map of the universe;
our sun is too small to be seen even as
a little, dim, Pickering star from the
outskirts of our universe. Then think
how small human being is to the bulk
of the earth Write down man as zero
again. And even the great globe fades out
of view We do not see other worlds
around the fixed stars and those who
live in the sunlight Of these fixed stars,
look in vain from their worlds through
their gigantic telescopes, to see our
grand world ! We are on world that
fails to make speck as an impression
on their eyes If the whole mass Of
matter in the fields of space were to
represent God, we are then as nothing
in his sight as so many physical beings!
What folly is it then to claim greatness
and glory, because one man owns a
dozen, or even hundred farms The
earth is less in the sight of God than a
grain of sand is in our sight. The
Bank of England is as light as feather
in Gods sight, and worth about as
little. Gold is no more to God than dirt
to us.
We are not working for God very
much while we are blowing our bub-
bles of fortune. We think, in some
cases, that heaven or hell depends on
whether.we are rich or poor. We want
to glitter like princes in our apparel,
live like kings and queens, and carry
well-flled purses, or, we want to die.
There are people who would sell body
and soul to be rich. Who are these
people working for Not for God.
They worship Mammon and they
work for the god of riches. There is
"a sense, however, in which we may
work for God in material things, as
when we accumulate wealth to be able
to foster and carry forward to success,
some moral reform, or social revolu-
ton; some political regeneration, or
movement, to elevate or spiritualize the
religious nature of man. But, in this
sense, the acquisition of wealth becomes
the means to realize something better
as the supreme object of life.
Making money to be able to do more
good in the world, and to become bet
ter ourselves, because we can then have
better personal advantages to be good,
as we'll as do good, is the right motive
to move US to desire and seek wealth.
But often they who have hardly liv-
ing, and work hard to keep soul and
body together on earth, are mentally
and morally rich, and spiritually more
useful servants of God than those who
in this life enjoy the best that the world
affords. AS Jesus taught us, "God is a
spirit" To be truly worshiped, that
worship must be spiritual. To be rightly
served, that service must be moral.
While, therefore, we are as nothing in
the sight of God as material beings, we
are everything in his sight as spiritual
beings.
The best representative of God and
the angel world that we can have, has
already appeared in history in the per-
son Of Jesus Christ Indeed, Jesus
Christ reveals God in his very spirit
and character, as the sunlight reveals
to us the sun. We're there no sun,
sunlight would not exist. Had there
been no spiritual God in the universe,
in whose paternal bosom the angels of
heaven dwell, and among them Jesus
Christ himself, there never would have
been a Jesus Christ revealing this shin
ing Father and Mother of spiritual light,
love, and life, whose household is COM
posed of all men and all angels. ALI
that God is, we do not know, and shall
never know, if he is infinite as we be-
iieve; but we know God we'll enough
to work for him and with him. When
we were children, we did not know all
that our parents were to the state, the
Church, society, business, and even the
home, nor would it have been possible
for our parents to have revealed to us
all they then were to US, for childhood
cannot fully understand and appreciate